GREENS LACK INFRASTRUCTURE
Elizabeth May is learning the hard way what it’s like to have your party under the national microscope. The media uncovered that a prospective Green candidate from Vancouver had previously described the 9/11 terrorist attacks as ‘Beautiful’, and commented that he sympathized with terrorists, saying ‘can you blame them?’.
This is a prime example of why the Green party is going to need time before they can develop into a national party with any kind influence in the House of Commons. For a party to be able to viably compete in a national context, they need the infrastructure not only to find candidates to run in all or most ridings, but they also need the personnel to be able to vet those candidates, to make sure they don’t completely embarrass the party if they do happen to win.
Elizabeth May can count herself lucky here that she never actually nominated him to run for the Greens, because you can bet that if the media hadn’t picked up on this story until after he was nominated as a candidate, she would have been taken completely by surprise.